


Dal Segno al Coda

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 1920s, Based on a prompt from the thoschei prompt generator by Valco, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25962487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: It's New York in the 1920s, and dancing is all the rage. There's a full band on the balcony in the foyer, a quartet by the pool, and a single piano player dedicatedly tapping away at the keys in a place as yet unseen.The Doctor floats towards the sound of that lonely piano. It nags at her. She knows the song or the touch or the instrument itself, but she cannot even begin to guess which or from where.It feels both in and out of this time, both in and out of this place, both achingly happy and devastatingly sad.Written for the Thoschei prompt exchange.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23
Collections: Thoschei Prompt Exchange 2020





	Dal Segno al Coda

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bossxtweed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossxtweed/gifts).



The Doctor is wearing a new suit. 

Of course, it might very well be an _old_ suit, left behind in the TARDIS by a long-forgotten friend as they passed through, but it's new to _her_ , and that's what counts. 

She's even borrowed a hat to go with it, swiping it from a communal hatstand by the ornate front doors on her way through the bustling front hall of the mansion. She doesn't know who its owner is and doesn't bother to ask permission first, but she plans on returning it before she leaves. They'll never even know it was gone. 

She rarely bothers to change clothes when she hops between eras — she likes her usual coat and trousers just fine — but she woke up with an itch in need of scratching, and for the first time in a long time, she wanted to feel a bit fancy. It's a Saturday — _big deals in general, Saturdays_ — and she was actually invited to this particular party instead of just deciding to crash a random one like she normally does, and it feels like it's going to be her first good night in a long time.

Her hand finds the pocket of her trousers, feeling for the folded invitation in order to make sure it's still there. She doesn't think anyone will ask her to show it at a checkpoint or anything — most of the people present are already thoroughly intoxicated on prohibition era alcohol — but knowing that she was formally invited makes her feel a bit better. She belongs, almost, which means a lot in a universe where she no longer has a home, even one that she openly rejected and that rejected her in return. 

It's gone. Burned away. Lost not in the kind of war that gave birth to this time on this planet, but in an act of cruelty by a single person. 

The hand in her pocket tightens slightly, creasing the corner of the invite, but outwardly, she hides the pain with a bright smile and several enthusiastic greetings tossed towards elegantly dressed strangers. 

It's New York in the 1920s, and dancing is all the rage. There's a full band on the balcony in the foyer, a quartet by the pool, and a single piano player dedicatedly tapping away at the keys in a place as yet unseen. 

The Doctor floats towards the sound of that lonely piano. It nags at her. She knows the song or the touch or the instrument itself, but she cannot even begin to guess which or from where. 

It feels both in and out of this time, both in and out of this place, both achingly happy and devastatingly sad. 

She ducks down the wrong hallway at first, catches herself moving away from the sound instead of towards it, and has to double back. There's color and life and joy all around her, but she hears only that piano. 

Another hallway brings her closer, and though the first door opens only upon a room empty aside from a pair of couples who sought a bit of privacy for a game, the second door brings her into a library. It's a cavernous space, truly — lined with more books than most humans could read in a lifetime. Men sit in armchairs and lean against the polished wood of the walls, smoking and drinking and talking in a quiet murmur that runs beneath the melodic traipsing of the piano. 

In one corner sits the player. 

Her dark hair is not chopped short, as would properly befit the time, rather it is pulled up and away from her face, leaving sharp cheekbones exposed and staying out of the way of her gaze as she focuses on the keys spread before her. The Doctor knows that Missy doesn't need to look at those keys  — that she could play the right notes while tangled in knots and battling an army and entirely breathless  — however, she is horribly, terribly relieved that those piercing eyes have not yet set into her. As is always the way with the two of them, they did not part under ideal circumstances. They stumble into each other's gravity and jostle a bit too close together before they both throw the other out of orbit. Theirs is a never-ending cycle, just like the falling of notes first up the scale and down again as gloved fingers sweep through a particularly grand cadenza. 

The Doctor ought to turn around and leave, walk out the door from whence she came without so much as a single, longing glance back over her shoulder before she goes. 

Perhaps she hesitates a moment too long. 

Perhaps she loses herself in the thought of the things that are and the things that might have been. 

The music slows, and those dreaded eyes burn into her as a snide smile crawls across painted lips. 

"Stay awhile, dearie.” 

It has been a long time since the Doctor has heard that voice. Their accents no longer match, the timelines are out of alignment, and she has the distinct sense that she is trespassing upon forbidden ground. It breeds suspicion. The invitation in her pocket no longer feels like an invitation — it feels like a _summons_. It is dreadful, ominous, stomach-wrenching, but as heavy as the past between them is, she cannot seem to stop herself from stepping forward, cannot seem to stop herself from hoping, cannot seem to stop herself from opening her hearts to the possibility of something better. 

The Doctor’s fingers slide along the side of the piano as she draws nearer, and she can feel the vibration of every note as Missy strikes the keys. She stops short, hovering a couple of steps away from Missy, hand still lingering on the piano as if it is the lodestone holding her to the world. 

Missy slides over slightly on the bench, leaving room for the Doctor to join her, but the Doctor declines with a question and a small shake of her head. “What are you doing here?”

Once again, there’s a curl of her lips, and Missy’s eyes fall back to the piano keys. “I live here.”

“You don’t.” The denial is immediate. 

“Oh, I do. Don’t own the place, of course, but I ingratiated myself with the people who do. It’s not that bad, you know. Having a family.” 

The Doctor sniffs and grinds the heel of her shoe into the floor. It squeaks and squeals, but the noise is mostly drowned out by Missy’s lilting music. “It’s not a family if the relationship is parasitical.” 

“Dear me, Doctor, less than a minute into the conversation and you’re already being _judgy_.” There’s a pause, a key change, and the tone of the music shifts to something airy and a touch too jaunty for the occasion. “I pay my dues. Organize their little parties, murder their enemies, it’s a full time gig.” 

“ _Missy_.”

Missy cocks an eyebrow and finally pauses her paying, leaning an elbow on the piano keys with a dissonant, off-balance mess of a chord and propping her chin on her hand. “ _Doctor_.” 

Theirs is a mostly silently standoff, as much a battle of the inherent contradictions that lurk within them as it is an external conflict between two friends, two enemies, two beings older than the civilization that birthed these wild parties and built this sprawling mansion. However, these were not conflicts that were resolved during the thousand years when the Doctor was tasked with guarding Missy, and they are most certainly not conflicts that can be solved here and now, in the single quiet corner of a raging party. 

One or both of them must give. 

Missy surrenders first — with a roll of her eyes and an enormous, theatrical sigh. “Be a doll and spare the lecture, Doctor. At this point, I’ve heard them all.” 

There’s a retort perched on the tip of the Doctor’s tongue — built upon protest and the idea that lectures don’t count if you choose not to learn anything from them — but she swallows it back. It would be yet another set of wasted words in an endless _string_ of wasted words. She has seen what Missy becomes — has seen their planet _burning_ , has seen Cybermen crowding into once-sacred rooms, has been betrayed over and over again until betrayal became an almost meaningless concept. 

But Missy doesn’t know that yet. Missy hasn’t _done_ that yet. Once upon a time, the Doctor saw hope and friendship and a desperate attempt to change reflected in these features, and the Doctor is entirely honest with herself, she still catches glimpses of those things lurking in the sparkle in her eyes and the amused set of her lips. 

The Doctor might be wearing a different face, but Missy is still the same old Missy.  


And perhaps it is merely an excuse — a flimsy shield held aloft so that to justify the Doctor’s need to run away and and turn a blind eye and avoid reckoning with both the past and the present — but she feels as though it is profoundly unfair of her to judge Missy for crimes that have yet to be committed.  
  
What difference would a bit of stolen time and a moment of forgetting make in the blistering vastness of eternity?   


The Doctor’s hand falls to her side as she leans away from the piano, and she shoves it into the pockets of her trousers, hiding sweaty palms and a closed fist. “I’m going to go track down a drink, do you want to come?” 

Missy’s eyes light up. The mood shifts. “But, _Doctor_ ,” she drawls. “Don’t you know it’s _illegal_?” 

The Doctor’s nose wrinkles as she turns on her heel, shoes once again squeaking on the floor. “Only for eleven more years. Drop in the bucket, really. Barely counts.” 

The Doctor turns her back and starts walking. She doesn’t look back to check on whether or not Missy is still following her; she knows that she has a shadow as soon as the sound of flapper heels patters against the marble floor and a mischievous hand swipes the borrowed hat from atop her head.   
  
A faint smile spreads across the Doctor's lips — born of false hope and blind faith and a yearning for things that can never be. 


End file.
